This article provides all you need to know to build your own bicycle wheels. A knowledge of wheelbuilding can be invaluable to any cyclist who wishes to do his or her own maintenance and repair.

Building wheels from scratch is the best way to learn the craft of wheel truing, to get the feel for how a wheel responds to spoke adjustments. It is much easier to learn this with new, un-damaged parts than to start right in trying to repair damaged wheels.

Bicycle tires come in a bewildering variety of sizes. To make matters worse, in the early days of cycling, every country that manufactured bicycles developed its own system of marking the sizes. These different national sizing schemes created a situation in which the same size tire would be known by different numbers in different countries. Even worse, different-sized tires that were not interchangeable with one another were often marked with the same numbers!
A newer international tire-sizing system has reolved this problem. Learn how to read tire sizes and find out which tires and rims are compatible with each other.

Most new bicycles of good quality use Shimano "Freehubs" for the rear hub, the heart of the gear shifting system. This article explains why, and lists the available Shimano and shimano-compatible clusters. If you want to customize your gearing to fit your riding style and terrain, this will show you what your options are.